About this title: Since childhood, Erasmus has lived behind the walls of a 3,400-year-old monastery. There, he and his cohorts are sealed off from the illiterate, irrational, and unpredictable secular world, until the day that a higher power decides it is only these cloistered scholars who have the abilities to avert an impending catastrophe.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: William Morrow
Date Published: 9/9/2008
ISBN-13:9780061474095ISBN:0061474096
Description: Good. 0061474096 Ex-library book with usual markings. Clean text. SATISF GNTD + SHIPS W/IN 24 HRS. Sorry, no APO deliveries. Ships in a padded envelope with free tracking. 47, 640r. read more
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: ATLANTIC BOOKS Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9781843549178ISBN:1843549174
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 928 pages. Erasmas, 'raz', is a young avout living in the concent. three times during history's darkest epochs, violence has invaded and devastated the cloistered community. yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe. but they now prepare to open the concent's gates to the outside world, in celebration of a once-a-decade rite. illustrations (Paperback) read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Harper
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780061474101ISBN:006147410X
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Description: New. Since childhood, Erasmus has lived behind the walls of a 3, 400-year-old monastery. There, he and his cohorts are sealed off from the illiterate, irrational, and unpredictable secular world, until the day that a higher power decides it is only these c... read more
Binding: First printing, Paperback, New,
Publisher: Harper, New York
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780061474101ISBN:006147410X
Description: New. “ Since childhood, Raz has lived behind the walls of a 3, 400-year-old monastery, a sanctuary for scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians. There, he and his cohorts are sealed off from the illiterate, irrational, and unpredictable secular world, until the day that a higher power decides it is only these cloistered scholars who have the abilities to avert an impending catastrophe. One by one, Raz and his friends, mentors, and teachers are sent forth without warning into the ... read more
"Any story that needs a dictionary to understand, is a work of an amateur. But obviously, if you have the right connections in the publishing world, you can become a success"
"I just finished my second read-through of this massive tome. If you don't like novels that could also be used to bludgeon a small elephant to death... READ THIS ONE ANYWAY.
Okay, it's actually not for everyone. This review will try to help you decide if you should delve into Anathem.
It helps if you like science fiction at least a little bit. It's not a space opera, nor is it anything that could be concretely labeled sci-fi, but there is that element, and it does take place on a different planet. Different, but not so dissimilar...
If you like to learn, even when reading for pleasure, I'd recommend ANY of Stephenson's books. This one will--often very subtly--acquaint you with the basics of etymology, ancient and modern philosphy and metaphysics, string theory, and the "many-worlds" interpretation of same. Among other things.
For all the education involved, the story is very good. It's much more engaging than one might expect based on the previous paragraph. Stephenson creates an entire world, complete with civilizations both past and present, and gives you just enough background story--worked seamlessly into the narrative--to make it real. You will literally be wrapped up in this fictional world to such an extent that when the story is over, the way you think about the real world will be influenced.
I have to warn you that, as with Stephenson's earlier lengthy novels, you might have to read for a dozen pages or so to really "get into" the story. But the first few characters you're introduced to are so eminently likable that you will find yourself caring about them very quickly. Once you've committed to the premise you won't be able to put Anathem down.
The story includes political intrigue, romance, action, clever dialogue, and analysis of deeply-ingrained prejudices. I don't know about you, but I personally couldn't ask for more from a novel. Anathem delivers on all those counts and then goes the extra mile.
Now I'm just gushing. If you haven't decided by now to check this book out, nothing I can say will convince you. If you have decided that it's worth a look, I applaud you for your bravery and good taste, and I hope you enjoy it as thoroughly as I did."
"Neal Stephenson continues his uneven work in bringing together the worlds of pop science fiction and scientific theory. In Anathem, he uses a closed culture of monastic intelligentsia set in a world of technologically savvy "lay brothers", common laborers, artisans, poiticians, and other presumed philistines as a vehicle to play with ideas of general relativity and quantum mechanics.
Stephenson is better than anyone else I know in the art of lecturing on sophisticated scientific and philosophical ideas under the guise of long conversations among his characters -- and the characters themselves are believeable. But I found myself slogging toward the finish, as I did with two of the novels of the Baroque Cycle (I didn't try for three), rather than sprinting along, as I did with Cryptonomicon and his early work. In the end, I quit at the beginning of the last chapter, just checking the final page to see if there were to be a happy ending. Intellectually, the ending was pleasing, raising the question not of whether a happy ending was realistic, but whether reality was. But I no longer cared if THISending was going to be happy for THESE characters.
Creating a new culture in an unknown world also allowed Stephenson to play a few linguistic games -- inventing names for things that were similar to, but not the same as, the ones we use. A liturgical rite in the monastic culture, for example, is called an "aut": similar, I suppose, to the word for the burning of a heretic, "auto-da-fe": but it would have looked better in English as something like 'aute", I think, without losing the auditory pun. Likewise "vlor" as a contraction of "Vale lore" -- martial arts. English doesn't contract words made up of two single-syllable nouns (like "dog house" to "dgouse"). He just doesn't quite have the ear for this kind of thing that, say, Russell Hoban did in "Ridley Walker".
I will keep buying Neal Stephenson novels, hoping once more to be swept off my feet as I was by Cryptonomicon -- but for me, this one wasn't it."
"An odd but intriguing melding of socratic dialogue with modern novel, complete with lessons on math, metaphysics, rhetoric and history, sprinkled in with Mr. Stephenson's usual sly commentary on human foibles. I really liked this better than any book of his since The Diamond Age, and I think it's a much more mature effort than that. He pulls from pretty much the entire western canon of philosphy, with heavy emphasis on Plato and his successors, although Kant and Husserl factor in as well. Geometric and cosmological strands also wind through the book, drawing heavily on Leibniz, Minkowski, Planck, and Dyson. All in all, an excellent book, and either you've read most of these folks and will spend much time teasing out the references and their significance, or you'll want to know where all this craziness came from and start to read them."
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